BLEACHERS BREW EST. MAY 2006

Someone asked me how my blog and newspaper column came to be titled "Bleachers Brew". It's like this, it's an amalgam of sorts of two things: The bleachers area in the stadium/arena where I used to sit when I would watch baseball, football, and basketball games and Miles Davis' great jazz album Bitches Brew. That's how it got culled together. I originally planned on calling it "The View from the Big Chair" that is a nod to Tears For Fear's second album, Songs from the Big Chair. So there.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

When I think of the NBA fining the San
Antonio Spurs for resting four of their players in their recent match against
the Miami Heat (yes, it still is an issue given that talk has come up if Gregg
Popovich will land the USA basketball head coaching job because of this), I
tell myself that the league is dangerous ground in this matter.

The NBA’s coffers might be $250,000 richer
but the San Antonio Spurs will be 100% tougher.

I understand that the league needs to
put its best product out there every night but in many ways, I think that has
not always been the case.

We’ve seen teams routinely sit down
their stars towards the end of the grind of the regular season. To use the
league’s argument, the fans come to watch the stars.

Remember the 2007 incident also
involving the Spurs, the Phoenix Suns saw two of its players in Amare
Stoudemire and Boris Diaw suspended by the league for leaving the bench during
an altercation. Following a flagrant foul by San Antonio’s Robert Horry on
Phoenix’ Steve Nash, the two stood up in the direction of the incident but went
no further. While they were physically not involved in the near fight that
broke out, Stoudemire and Diaw were suspended the next match that allowed San
Antonio to take a crucial 3-2 series lead in this Western semifinals series.

As then-Phoenix head coach Mike
D’Antoni said after the suspension, “We have the most
powerful microscopes and telescopes in the world in Arizona, [and] you could
use those instruments and not find a shred of fairness or common sense in that
decision. That's kind of how it feels. It really benefits no one. It doesn't
benefit us, obviously. It doesn't benefit the Spurs. It doesn't benefit the
fans. It doesn't benefit the NBA."

I believe that Popovich had this Zen
moment where he sent more of a statement to the league about the scheduling but
also to his team. Sure the Memphis Grizzlies are conference rivals but isn’t
playing the defending champions more of a barometer of how good your team is
that an unproven contender?

But the scheduling? We have seen how unkind it has been since the
last season when top stars from Derrick Rose to Al Horford to Ricky Rubio all
the way to Dwight Howard went down one after the other due to injuries.

The schedule that Popovich referred to is unfair and does not help
the Spurs. By the same token, Miami was on extended vacation around the same
time. What gives?

There is a rule about how NBA players
should not leave the bench but they merely stood up and took only a few steps.
Sure there is the rule but was the ruling just?

And where in the rulebook does it say
that a coach has to play all his best players?

How different is it when a coach sits
a player for disciplinary reasons or he is about to be traded?

In other North American sports leagues
such as Major League Baseball or the National Football League you see manager’s
rest some of their star players. “Give them the day off” is the term for it. In
soccer, managers regularly save some of their top players for a second fixture
in a week and depending on they need to play as well as their conditioning.

Let’s keep it to the NBA, you might
say and so let’s go back.

There was an incident in 2006 when the
Philadelphia 76ers did not field Allen Iverson and Chris Webber arrived late
for their final home match of the regular season. Why did the league turn a
blind eye to this? Was it because the team disciplined the players? But they
arrived right before tip-off. And I am sure that many people went to the match
hoping to see Iverson and Webber.

There’s more. We’ve seen players skip
the All-Star Game on the pretext of an injury but were elsewhere. I can
understand that. But I don’t think that teams should be fined for
basketball-based decisions.

When “restgate” blew up, I also
thought of the time when the NBA fined Nike for every game Michael Jordan wore
his red and black Air Jordans (the league said that there should be some white
in the shoe color scheme). The NBA fined Nike $5,000 for every game that Jordan
wore the shoe. In the end, the banned shoe was probably the biggest sales tool
that Nike received because it soon turned into a runaway best seller.

The fact that even without their top
players, the Spurs battled the Miami Heat to a standstill also says a lot. The
Spurs didn’t march into Miami to lose? They went there to win. They came up
short but the bench felt good about themselves after nearly stealing a W on the
road. That and trust in their coach and vice versa. It says that the coach has
their back and they’ve got his.

The San Antonio Spurs were fined a
stiff $250,000 dollars for “restgate” but that might be a little price to pay
as Pop gained the respect of his players (not that he doesn’t have it yet) that
cultivates an us-against-the-league mentality that will beget a killer
instinct. And my guess is that Popovich hopes that this will serve his team in
the long run and much farther than the grind that is the NBA season.

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Who am I?

What I do for a living?

I also write regularly for Business Mirror; philstar.com; abs-cbnnews.com, and rappler.com.

I am also currently the media officer for the Filoil Flying V Hanes Premier Cup, the National Basketball Training Center, and the Flying V Davao Thunders.

I do PR consultancy for a variety of clients that I do not want to divulge.

I used to teach journalism at the Ateneo de Manila University hand have given lectures about journalism, new media, marketing, and public relations at the Ateneo, UP Diliman, UST, San Beda, Immaculate Conception Academy, Miriam College, Mindanao State University, FIFA seminars, and a few other schools and organizations.

I used to write for the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Philippines Free Press, and Maxim Philippines. I have also contributed to FHM, Men's Health, Tower Sports NBA, Rebound, and a few other sports, interior design, and lifestyle magazines as well. Most recently, I was the editor-in-chief of PBA Life, the Official Lifestyle Magazine of the Philippine Basketball Association as well as Season 40 edition of Hardcourt, the season-in-review.

My blog, Bleachers' Brew, serves as a hub for many of my writings (but not all as there are some that are exclusive).

When I have free time, I listen to my collection of over 5,000 CDs, read, watch DVDs, or walk my dog around the subdivision.

Liverpool FC

My all-time favorite football team. I bleed Liverpool Red.

Books in my collection: Four Four Two with an excellent feature on Jurgen Klopp!